It isn't that scary...right?

What to expect:

5 min read

This week, we dive into how recent developments in edtech are not benefiting every classroom, especially for our primary friends. Here’s what you can expect:

• Tech Talk: A (free?) personal classroom assistant, brought to you by AI

• Surplus Scoop: Videogame addiction leads to an increase in student absences

• Brainy Bits: Digitally native students have entered the school system

Tech Talk

Your own custom assistant

Here at The PEN Weekly, our goal is not just to tell you about well known apps, but to introduce you to new(er) edtech that is not as famous (yet). This week, we turn to a rather new player from Canada that we're eager to try ourselves - Karu Learning.

This is a custom-built teaching assistant that can be adapted to any course, class, or grade that you teach. Essentially, it creates an AI-powered assistant that students would have access to 24/7, thus freeing up your class time while also ensuring students don't fall behind outside of class hours.

Karu Learning is so new that they're currently still in their pilot stage - but the good news for you is that the pilot program is currently free. How does their app work exactly?

Leveraging off of a similar build to ChatGPT and your own course material, it creates a personalized chat bot that does more than just answer questions. First, you upload slides, recordings, notes, textbook pdfs, assignments, and anything else you normally teach with. Their AI model then takes it all in and makes a custom bot built off of your material.

It can also personalize itself depending on the student. As learners progresses through your class, it will adapt its answers and approach accordingly to their level of success.

The goal here is not to replace you as their teacher, but for students to have access to help outside of school hours. Let's say a student is struggling with a homework math problem. Instead of them giving up due to lack of help, or cheating to find the answer, they can now turn to your custom assistant, say "I need help with question 7" and instantly receive custom, step-by-step instructions.

With something this powerful there are of course some fears. Will some students take advantage of this? Yes, but that is not the fault of the app itself; this is not meant to be a free cheating pass. Also, even though the pilot program is free right now, actual pricing models have not been publicly released. They claim security is top of mind, but as always, proceed with caution especially if you plan on uploading material that is owned by your district/school.

Even with these hurdles, it's still an insanely interesting approach to AI in the classroom. Many experts have been calling for a similar model of school AI. Time will tell if Karu Learning can be the one to pull it off. 

Will you sign up for their free pilot? Have a better tool in mind? Hit reply and let us know!

Surplus Scoop

Here’s our weekly roundup of interesting education stories from around the world. Click each link to learn more:

• Thinking of quitting your classroom? Would an early Friday dismissal change your mind? The English government is banking on it!

• Thank you Costco - every student receives a free backpack in this Canadian school thanks to an unlikely donor.

• Nearly 100,000 Australian teens are addicted to videogames - what can teachers do to help?

Brainy Bits

Teachers vs. Gen Alpha

The youngest Generation Alpha students are what we call digitally native. This means that many of these students have been using technology since before they could talk - and they have officially entered the school system. This week’s study by Peretti et al. (2024) is freshly published out of Italy and aims to see how current teachers are handling these technology-only students.

Before the pandemic, to find early learning students using their own technology was rare. There has since been a boom of technology present in these classrooms not just in Italy, but worldwide. Considering these students only know technology, how can current teachers, who are most likely not digital natives, respond?

Researchers provided a series of questionnaires asking about personal use and perception of edtech to 180 teachers of digitally native students (pre-k through primary) in Italy. These results were then tracked against the Intrapersonal Technology Integration Scale. This scale measures the internal-self factors that impact a teacher’s willingness to use technology to solve a problem. The results were as follows:

Pre-k teachers struggle with using edtech the most, but not because their students are too young. The real reason is a lack of teacher training. Pre-k classes were not fully operating during the pandemic, and so these teachers did not receive the same technology training as older grades. This lack of training leads to a lack of teacher confidence with these tools. This is not to say that every pre-k class needs Google Classroom, but just an interesting point brought up.

Also, they found that the higher the grade level, the more likely a teacher is to be confident implementing classroom technology. However, teachers who are older, as Italy has the highest average teacher age in Europe, showed the smallest levels of technology confidence.

Where does this bring us? Well, these results show that we need to empower our early learning teachers cognitively, socially, and technically regardless of their age. Many studies show that if introduced in controlled amounts with a trained educator present, introducing edtech early increases student success with it in later grades. If we equip our teachers for success, the students will follow suit.

Are you a pre-k through elementary teacher not using too much edtech? Don’t worry! Every classroom is different and you know your learners (and yourself) best! But if it’s a lack of confidence only, then we owe it to our youngest learners to pursue appropriate training. 

Any tips for teaching digitally native students? Respond to this email and let us know! 

Tell your friends about us!

Like what you’ve seen? Forward us to your friends and colleagues so y’all have something to talk about next week. 😎

Have an idea for some classroom tech, strategies, or research that you think is valuable for the community? Respond to this email and let us know.

Interested in growing with us? Want us to feature your tech tool, resource, or research? Hit reply to start a conversation.

References

This week’s issue adapts information from the following sources:

Tech Talk:

Karu. (2024). Assistants built for your course. From your course. Retrieved from https://www.karulearning.com/ 

Brainy Bits:

Peretti, S., Kubiatko, M., Caruso, F., Di Mascio, T., Giancola, M., D’Amico, S., & Pino, M.C. (2024). #InstaMind: teachers’ beliefs on educational technology to promote seamless technology integration in early education. Front. Educ. 9:1399807. doi: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1399807